Noun
by eirabach
Summary: When the Doctor thinks of Tony, he also thinks of Kelloggs. Will Jackie Tyler ever realise her naming faux-pas? Alt!Verse post-Journey's End. One-Shot.


**A/N: My mind works in mysterious ways, but my first reaction to Jackie's son's name was 'Tony Tyler? Like Tiger? WHAT?'. This is the result. It also might be worth mentioning that Vera Duckworth was a character in long-running British soap 'Coronation Street'.  
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**Disclaimer: Not mine. BBC's. I pay my licence fee, but I don't think that earns me much in the way of ownership. Please don't sue, I only have one more payday till Christmas and I'm skint.**

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"Why Tony?"

Some days are always typical, no matter how atypical a given situation may be, and the evenings between tea and Tony's bedtime had evolved that comfortable familiarity so charming to humans and so distasteful to the alien part of the Doctor's nature. This was probably why, as Jackie and Rose gossiped and Pete buried his nose in the Financial Mail and pretended an interest in share-prices, the Doctor was crawling about on the floor demonstrating Sonic Screwdriver setting 409 (opening yogurt pot lids with minimal spray) to a toddler. Tony had managed to achieve a very acceptable hum and glow combination when Jackie gave up berating Rose for their most recent terribly-dangerous-but-very-good-fun work adventure and instead turned her narrowed glare on the Doctor.

"What about Tony? And will you take that thing off him Doctor, he's going to swallow it." The Doctor and Tony both gazed at her with something between horror and pity.

"He won't _swallow it_ Jackie," said the Doctor, "he's a child, not a dog."

Tony nodded enthusiastically in agreement and the Screwdriver's hum reached a higher, more dangerous sounding, pitch.

"Or he'll demolish half the room," added Rose; eyeing the machine and Tony's huge grin with amused concern.

"Safety's on, it'll be fine." huffed the Doctor, waving any and all worries away with one blasé hand gesture. Thirty seconds later, Tony seemed to decide that he knew all there was to know about opening runny desserts and tried instead for setting 410.

There was a moment of silence as the dust settled.

"Safety needs work. Don't worry Jackie, it'll come right out… just…" the Doctor rubbed ineffectually at the scorch marks on the wallpaper with his sleeve. Jackie stood and stomped purposefully towards him, taking the Screwdriver from a non-plussed Tony on the way. The Doctor tried for his best innocent grin.

"Before you kill me, as you're absolutely and completely within your rights to do, tell me: Why Tony?"

The Doctor deflated somewhat at her thunderous expression, "Come on Jacks… dying man's last wish? Are you – um – are you growling?"

The forbidding rumbling that seemed to be emanating from Jackie stopped briefly as she spat, "What about Tony?"

The Doctor looked to Rose and Pete for help, but Rose was trying not to laugh and Pete was still covered by the Financial Mail so that only his eyebrows were visible. Neither of them looked tempted to help him cage this angry beast. No matter, he thought, if she was already mad at him then he may as well try for an answer to the question that's been nagging at him ever since that day on the beach.

"The name, Tony, where'd you pick it from? Why not Martin or Nigel or Recseltimpre?"

Jackie, luckily, seemed surprised enough by the question to answer it, and to leave him a little more time to live.

"Recselwha? Why not Tony, I like it. Good solid manly name Tony. Pete liked it, didn't you dear."

Pete made a non-committal noise from behind the paper. The Doctor began to think that the newspaper disguise was one he might have to take up himself the next time Jackie started on about some twaddle she'd read in a magazine.

"Is this because we didn't call him Doctor?" asked Jackie, and the anger had been partially replaced with something that the Doctor thought might be pity. It's the least pleasant thing he had ever heard from Jackie Tyler's mouth, and he'd seen her drunk. He had hoped she'd got over pitying him now, especially after that slap she gave him over the microwave. And the hoover.

"Oh no no no. Terrible name Doctor, 'specially if you aren't one and I should know. Spend a lot of time hearing about old people's sciatica and their hernia operations. Really quite relieved he's been spared it all, honestly. But Tony… don't you think Tony's a sort of – _funny – _name?"

Rose raised her eyebrows at him from over Jackie's shoulder and he answered by raising one of his own. Surely, _surely_, he can't have been the only person to notice…

"Mum thought she was having a girl, didn't you Mum?" Rose's interruption set Jackie reminiscing. She sighed dreamily, and sat on the floor next to Tony. The Doctor let out a sigh of relief; Jackie was much less threatening when you were taller than her.

"Didn't know how this parallel universe thing worked, Pete was worried we'd end up with a Rose clone weren't you Pete?"

Pete sighed and rolled up his paper. He lent forward and smirked at Rose.

"Worried's not the word. Terrified, more like."

Rose gasped in mock horror, "Oi!"

Pete sniggered and reached forward to pinch her cheek, but she batted his hand away in embarrassment.

"Tomorrow, Doctor. I swear tomorrow we're moving out."

"_Anyway_," said Jackie, annoyed at having her story interrupted even if she hadn't chosen to tell it in the first place, "Rose's right. Thought I was having a girl. Decided on Vera…"

"_Vera?_" the Doctor yelped, images of pigeons and woolly coats and hot-pots filling his head. He had a sudden, not entirely altruistic, desire to take Jackie's temperature.

"Oh that's very in over here, 'bout four little Vera's in every class. Cutting edge a few years back." Said Rose by way of an explanation, "Seems like half the time this universe is stuck in a twisted version of 1943."

"Why? What was happening in 1943 over there?" asked Pete, genuinely interested in the conversation for the first time, shares pushed to the back of his mind.

The Doctor scratched the back of his neck and shrugged. "Oh, you know - nothing of consequence; pan-European war; mass genocide. Massive universe-splitting event, maybe, don't worry about it."

Pete had opened his mouth to reply, when Jackie turned and quelled his curiosity with a look.

"As I was saying," she said, now very much into her stride as a story-teller, "I hadn't even thought of a name for a boy – thought about Doctor, for about ten minutes, but what sort of mother would do that to a little baby –"

"My mother didn't…" Began the Doctor, but Jackie barely let him get the words out.

"_So_ – I'm in the hospital and he's on his way and it just sort of came to me, right in my head like a sign, _Tony_. And I said to Pete 'Tony's a nice name for a boy isn't it?' and he thought it was lovely."

Pete rolled his eyes, "You were purposefully trying to dislocate my fingers Jackie. I'd have agreed to Recseltimpre if it would have made you happy."

"You do like it though? You never said before…" Jackie sounded genuinely worried, and gathered Tony to her for a cuddle. Luckily, Pete Tyler was a very intelligent man.

"Of course I do, dear."

Jackie beamed her approval at him and shot the Doctor a look that, if looks could speak, would have told him _I told you so_ in such a manner that he would never have ventured a contrary opinion on anything ever again.

"And you Rose. You think it's a lovely name don't you?" Jackie was supremely confident now, just waiting for Rose to put the final nail in his coffin of disagreement. This was his last chance to prove his point.

He really hoped he knew Rose as well as he thought he did.

"Yeah Rose," he encouraged her, "_Tony Tyler_, has a ring to it don't you think?"

He put all the emphasis he could on the words, and was filled with a warm sense of satisfaction as he watched realisation dawn on her face.

"Yeah." said Rose slowly, her eyes glittering with amusement, "In fact, I think it's grrrreat!"

Jackie, bless her, never got it.


End file.
